Last November, , from the American Press Institute put out a call to his colleagues for advice on, as he put it, how to help an old stegasaurus upgrade his online skills. Steve, I hasten to add, wasn’t the old dinosaur in question, rather the request had arisen from one of his students. I reread what I had provided Steve and I think it’s some pretty fair advice for any journalist who’s looking to upgrade their skills, so I’m reprinting them here. But I urge you to visit and take in some of the really smart suggestions that came from journalists and instructors across North America.Here’s what I wrote:
"Since I’m in the midst of re-vamping our own WebU’s 30-course
curriculum, this question comes at a good time. Unclear from the note
whether this old stegosaur is looking for formal training or self-led
learning.
If it’s the latter, I have some simple suggestions for any journalist wondering how to get up to speed on these issues:
- Learn how to use your favourite MP3 player and free
software like iTunes to catch podcasts. Start with IT Conversations -
spend time with the "Most Highly Rated" list, picking and choosing
topics and speakers that seem interesting. Then begin picking shows
weekly. They feature some of the brightest minds in the web/digital
tech field and giving them an hour or three a week of your time (while
you’re commuting, running, raking leaves etc) is like a free University
extension course. - Ditto Twitter. Short sharp messages you can broadcast to whoever
signs up for them. Tool or toy? No snap judgements – study it, figure
out what it’s doing for all those tens of thousands of loyal users. - Get yourself an RSS reader (Google Reader, Bloglines, various
plug-ins in Firefox, Safari itself ) and start getting serious and
organized about reading writers whose ideas speak to you. Find one you
like and then spider out from there, tracking the peopel they read and
refer to. Organize it in a reader and pay yourself with at least 15
mins of quiet reading time daily. Gather it all, but be choosy about
what you dive into. Don’t know RSS? Wikipedia is almost always a good
"explain it for me" tool. - Get a smart phone with a cheap data plan (that rules all us
Canadian out) and make it a point to use SMS, to text your spouse quick
bursts of info, instead of saving it up for a call. Figure out the real
uses of the tech. Take pics and shoot them off to photo sharing sites
or back to your paper. Use Google Gears to download your blog reading
onto your phone. - In short – if you want to understand the internets, jump right in and start using them."
Any thoughts about what might be your advice?
Bill
(Photo from , Creative Commons attribution licence)